Transporting a housing by air.

So I'm set up with my Canon Rebel 350D / XT and the Ikelite housing, DS51 strobe, a port for the 60mm macro lens, and an 8" port for the EF-S 10-22 lens. The housing and ports, particularly the 8" dome port, are pretty bulky.

Tenatively, I'm planning on taking a particularly big (21" x 13" x 9") carry on bag with this all stuffed in it, and the camera inside the housing with the 60mm lens attached. I'm not really sure what to do with the 10-22 lens, though. I'm uncomfortable with the idea of it rattling around in there, even if I do wrap it in a towel or something. Ordinarily my camera gear would all be in a camera bag with partitions keeping everything in place, but my bag is maybe half the size of the housing + dome.

I suppose I could check the housing, but that doesn't seem safe. Even if I'm just flying to Hawaii.

What do you generally do?

- Gus

Last time I went to Hawaii here's what I did. I checked my housing, extension rings, strobes and arms in a hard shell suitcase. I insulated everything with my wetsuit, towel and some packing material and said a little prayer.

I carried on my camera body, lenses and my regulator in a camera backpack and my glass dome port in a pelican carry-on. Everything arrived just fine and I had a layover in Honolulu on my way to Kona.

I'm about to head out to Grand Cayman and I think I'll be doing something similar.

You might want to check to make sure your airline doesn't have weight restrictions on the carry on, I remember reading somewhere that they are starting to enforce this.

not at all the best to check the camera and lens inside the housing

check the housings, etc. well padded in hard-shelled case and carry the cameras and lenses on

There are these things called Domke Wraps (do a search) that are like padding that you can wrap around your delicate stuff and they have velcro built in to hold it in place. You can probably fit all/most of your stuff in carry-on - which is what I'd do if you're flying domestic from the con US to Hawaii.

Cheers

James

I use a Pelican 1510 carry-on. Here’s what I do:

I only have 1" of foam around the inner case, I place the 8" dome with cover on bottom facing down and then I place a divider and put my housing on bottom facing down to the divider. Then come the tricky part… around the big dome I arrange 2 DS-125 batteries separated (you can arrange 1 or 2 DS-50 (51) really easier than me, I did this in the past too believe me... there is still space for ext. rings too

The all camera gear, lens and chargers go with me on a camera bag.

Tray and handles on the luggage, let´em take the beating.

I pass several times onto Miami Int. airport flying A&A with this setup.

Oh! Be sure flying US that homeland security going to check your strobes for explosives… altough, maybe not on domestic flights...

Most of the camera bags are either too small or way too thick to pass the new airport hand luggage restriction.

I started with taking everything that I need with me on board. There's no point of having housing and strobes if the port is lost with the checked in baggage.

To maximised the allowance, I just modified my normal Carry on case by stuffing the lining with protective layers (load of bubble wraps) To stop thing rattling around, I underlaid the bottom of the case with foam-cor cardboard with holes cut to the same size as the port.

If you have a big dome port, you won't be able to find a place to put the strobe on that cardboard. I bubble wrapped them and place them in between the ports so that it's keep everything in place.

You can put the lenses inside the port, but make sure you also wrap this as it might stratch the acrylic part of the port.

This way I manage to put everything inside a single case. It even has room for my regulator.

Everything else like memory cards and arms can go in the external pouches or the zip compartment

Most of the camera bags are either too small or way too thick to pass the new airport hand luggage restriction.

I hadn't heard about new restrictions. I was pretty sure the most restrictive was 9" x 14" x 22".

I don't see your housing in that photo, just the ports and the camera, but I assume it's in there somewhere.

- Gus

I used a Pelican 1550 with padded dividers. It's just barely bigger than the allowed carry on size and it weighs a ton, but I haven't had any problems with it. You just have to make it look light. On our last trip, the weight limit was 15 lbs, but it weighed over 45 lbs! It carries an Ike housing for a Canon 350D, 2 DS-125's, 3 batteries, 2 complete strobe arms, macro port, 6" dome, battery charger, 2 double synch cords, 1 single synch cord and some other small accessories like lube, magic filters, etc.

I then put my camera and lenses in a Lowepro camera bag and claim that as my "purse". I then rely on my wife to take our laptop and anything else that I would want on the plane.

It's my scuba gear that gets checked as it's a lot easier to replace than my camera equipment.